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WILLLIAM E. BARRICK
Executive Director of Bellingrath Gardens and Home
William E. Barrick received BS and MS degrees from
Auburn University and a PhD in Landscape
Horticulture from Michigan State University. After
graduation, he served as an Assistant Professor in
Ornamental Horticulture at the University of
Florida. He was Executive Vice-President and
Director of Gardens at Callaway Gardens in Pine
Mountain Georgia for almost twenty years before
becoming Executive Director of Bellingrath Gardens
and Home in November 1999. Dr. Barrick is a Past
President of the American Public Garden
Association, Past Chairman of the American
Horticultural Society, 1994 recipient of the Arthur
Hoyt Scott Horticulture Medal and the 2012
Governor’s Tourism Award from the Alabama
Tourism Department. Dr. Barrick has served on the
board of Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors
Bureau since 2000 and currently serves as Vice-Chairman of the Board. Additionally, he
serves on the board of the South Mobile County Tourism Authority as a founding
member and Chairman of this organization. Most recently he was appointed by
Governor Robert Bentley to the Alabama Coastal Advisory Committee. He currently
serves on the board of the Providence Hospital Foundation, the Downtown Mobile
Alliance board and a member of the Rotary Club of Mobile. He is a past member of the
Infirmary West Advisory Board, the Advisory Committee of Spring Hill College, the
Visiting Committee of the University of Mobile, the Visiting Committee of Longwood
Gardens, the Advisory Committee for the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. and
the College of Agriculture Advisory Committee of Auburn University. He is the author of
the American Horticultural Society’s 75 Great American Garden Plants, co-author of the
American Horticultural Society’s Southeast SmartGarden Regional Guide and a
contributing writer for How to Achieve A Heaven on Earth. He is a graduate of
Leadership Georgia, Leadership Mobile and Leadership Alabama. Dr. Barrick is also an
affiliate professor in ornamental horticulture at Auburn University. He and his wife
Jessica are members of Dauphin Way United Methodist Church and are involved in
several cultural organizations in the community.
12401 Bellingrath Gardens Road  Theodore, Alabama 36582
800.247.8420 / 251.973.2217  www.bellingrath.org
CHARLES E. OWENS
Director of Horticulture and Manager of Maintenance
Chuck Owens is the current Director of Horticulture and Manger of Maintenance
for Bellingrath Gardens and Home, where he has been employed since 1998. Prior to
his current position, Mr. Owens was the Nursery Manager at Bellingrath. Before coming
to Bellingrath Gardens, he worked for many years in the landscape installation and
maintenance industry and in his family’s recreation/amusement business.
Mr. Owens is a native of Decatur, Ala., and a graduate of Auburn University in
Landscape and Ornamental Horticulture. He is a member of the National
Chrysanthemum Society and the Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Association. He and his
wife, Amy, are members of Oyster Bay Baptist Church. They live on a small farm with
their three daughters in the Rosinton community in Baldwin County, Ala., where they
grow pecans, satsumas and other citrus.
Thomas C. McGehee
Museum Director of the Bellingrath Home
Tom McGehee has served as the Museum Director for Bellingrath Gardens and Home
since January 1994. In that capacity he oversees the 15-room Bellingrath Home and its
collection of decorative arts and antiques as well as its archives. He also maintains the
Delchamps Collection of Boehm Porcelain.
McGehee currently serves as president of the Friends of Magnolia Cemetery and is a
member of the boards of the Friends of the Alabama Governor’s Mansion, the Rotary
Club of Mobile and the Friends of the History Museum of Mobile. He served for 21
years as chairman of the Tree Commission for the City of Mobile and recently ended his
third term as secretary of the Victorian Society in America headquartered in
Philadelphia. He currently serves as Clerk of Session for Government Street
Presbyterian Church.
In 1996, the City of Mobile’s Historic Development Commission awarded him the
Elizabeth Gould Award for his research into architect George B. Rogers as well as
Mobile’s lost architectural heritage. He is a 1997 graduate of the Newport (RI) Summer
School conducted by the Victorian Society, a 1999 graduate of the Winter Institute of
Decorative Arts held at Winterthur, a 2000 graduate of the Cooper-Hewitt’s French
Decorative Arts Studies in Paris, a 2001 graduate of the London Summer School
conducted by the Victorian Society, and a 2008 graduate of the Attingham Trust
Summer School held in the UK, as well as the first Attingham Trust Study of the London
Town House held in 2010.
12401 Bellingrath Gardens Road  Theodore, Alabama 36582
800.247.8420 / 251.973.2217  www.bellingrath.org
Since 1997, McGehee has been a regular lecturer for Roads Scholar (fka Elder Hostel)
hosted by the University of South Alabama and has conducted walking tours of Mobile’s
historic districts and Magnolia Cemetery.
His “Ask McGehee” column has appeared monthly in Mobile Bay Magazine for over a
decade and it has regularly won the annual Readers’ Choice Award. He also serves as
editor for the Magnolia Messenger, the newsletter for the Friends of Magnolia
Cemetery, which is published three times a year.
McGehee, a native of Bronxville, N.Y., is a graduate of the Bronxville School and the
University of Georgia, where he earned a B.A. in journalism with minors in business and
history.
He is married to the former Lucile Rutherford Smith of Monroeville. Their daughter,
Megan, currently lives in Manhattan, where she works for a private financial group.
12401 Bellingrath Gardens Road  Theodore, Alabama 36582
800.247.8420 / 251.973.2217  www.bellingrath.org